Pay Telephone Reclassification and Compensation Provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996

The Federal Communications Commission (``Commission'') adopts a Report and Order implementing Section 276 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (``1996 Act''). In the Report and Order, the Commission adopts new rules and policies governing the payphone industry that: establish a plan to ensure fair compensation for ``each and every completed intrastate and interstate call using [a] payphone[,]'' discontinue intrastate and interstate carrier access charge payphone service elements and payments and intrastate and interstate payphone subsidies from basic exchange services, prescribe nonstructural safeguards for Bell Operating Company (``BOC'') payphones, permit the BOCs to negotiate with payphone location providers on the interLATA carrier presubscribed to their payphones, permit all payphone service providers to negotiate with location providers on the intraLATA carrier presubscribed to their payphones, and adopt guidelines for use by the states in establishing public interest payphones to be located ``where there would otherwise not be a payphone[.]'' As set forth in the Report and Order and explained below, the Commission is issuing the Report and Order to comply with the statutory mandate of Section 276 of the 1996 Act of ``promot[ing] competition among payphone service providers and promot[ing] the widespread deployment of payphone services to the benefit of the general public * * *.''